Digital Commons Network^™

In Our Voices, Through Our Eyes : An Oral History Of The Illinois School Library Media Association, Mary Romano Marks

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative study examined the development of the Illinois School Library Association (ISLMA). The research focused on archival documents from the ISLMA, the Illinois Library Association (ILA), and the Illinois Association for Media in Education (IAME) Archives and the personal files of the interviewees. In addition, interviews were conducted with individuals associated with IAME and ISLMA. Participants were asked to recollect the development of ISLMA and their professional roles in relation to its birth. This research was examined in relation to the development of ISLMA, school library media history and related education, and library national standards and trends and is …

Libyan Women And Revolution : A Study Of The Changes In Women's Political And Social Roles During And After The Libyan Revolution, Haala Hweio

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Several uprisings against some long-term dictatorships in the Arab region took place during the year of 2011. The phenomenon, commonly known as the Arab Spring, started in December 2010 in Tunisia, a small North African Arabic country that was going through tough economic times. The domino effect of the Tunisian revolution spread quickly through the region. Almost all Arab countries witnessed political unrest and protests demanding reforms, but in a few of them--- Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen---the situation escalated to the level of popular revolution. The Arab Spring phenomenon opened the door for studies on collective behavior and revisiting …

Managing An Information Explosion : Civilian Administration And The Army Of Louis Xiv, 1661-1701, Robert Fulton

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the operations of the civilian administration of the War Department in early modern France during the reign of Louis XIV. Specifically, it analyzes the documents that represent a wide variety of information which circulated within the War Department's administrative networks. I connect these sources to the work of a new group of civilian agents, the premier commis, and utilize them to infer in what manner they were able to effectively manage a rapidly increasing volume of information materials and to influence state development in a profound manner. This examination found all of these sources to be increasing …

Mass Mobilization And The Breakdown Of Democratic Regimes : Egypt And Indonesia In A Comparative Perspective, Testriono

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Why do elite conflicts in new democratic countries produce divergent political outcomes? Under what conditions do elite conflicts lead to the survival or the breakdown of democracy? Previous studies emphasize structural, institutional, and elite factors in explaining democratic breakdown, while overlooking popular mobilization as a factor. In proposing the interaction of two variables, elite conflict and mass mobilization, this thesis argues the divergent levels of the embeddedness of mass mobilization in elite conflict during political crisis result in either the survival or the breakdown of democratic regimes. I examine Egypt and Indonesia because they underwent severe elite conflict but had …

Media's Influence On Attitudes Towards Gay Men, Anna Rossi

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis research examines the importance of media in influencing public perceptions. There is little empirical evidence that negative portrayals of gay characters in movies and television shows cause individuals to have negative attitudes towards gay men. I further the research in this field by measuring participants' views on gays, directly showing them a stereotypical or non-stereotypical clip depicting gay men, and then again measuring their attitudes towards gays. I evaluate the claim that the quality of portrayals of gays in movies and television shows influence the viewer's acceptance of gays by conducting an experiment and using a comparison of …

Millennial High School Teachers' Perceptions Of The Danielson Framework For Teaching As An Evaluation Tool : A Mixed-Methods Approach, Amy Sipovic

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This mixed methods study investigated how high school teachers born between the years 1982 and 1994 perceived the Danielson Framework for Teaching as an evaluation tool. Using Strauss and Howe's (1991) Generational Theory as a framework, the study examined what themes Millennial high school teachers used to describe the Danielson Framework for Teaching as an evaluation tool, their perceived strengths and weaknesses of the Danielson Framework for Teaching, whether Millennial high school teachers viewed the Danielson Framework for Teaching as a valid and reliable evaluation instrument, how their experiential knowledge influenced their views of the Danielson Framework for Teaching, and …

Moving Beyond Personal Responsibility : A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Digital Citizenship Curricula, Kristen Mattison

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes how the concept of "digital citizenship" is conceptualized and furthered through three freely available curricula intended for use with high school students: NetSmartz, Digital Citizenship in Schools, and Common Sense Media. By employing a critical discourse analysis and examining the influence of sentence structure, collocational patterns, connotation, structural opposition, images and other tools used to craft and forward messages, I determined that the discoursed concept of "digital citizenship" aligns with traditional frameworks of citizenship education in schools, namely that of the personally responsible citizen. Much of the curricular documents are designed through a deficit perspective, making assumptions …

Assembly And Degradation Of A Trimeric Membrane Protein Acrb, Qian Chai

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Multidrug efflux pumps are membrane proteins that actively transport foreign objects out of cells. The active efflux of these pumps is a critical self-defense mechanism that enables the survival of bacteria under hostile environments. Efflux pump AcrB is a member of the Resistance-Nodulation-Division (RND) super family. In E. coli, it associates with periplasmic protein AcrA and outer membrane channel TolC to extrude a variety of noxious compounds out of cell from both the cytoplasm and the periplasm. My dissertation research focused on two aspects of this multidrug efflux pump: the oligomerization process during the biogenesis of AcrB and its …

Optimum Structure Of Cell Components For A Membrane-Less Iron-Ion/Hydrogen Redox Flow Battery, Jayanth Kolli

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The redox flow battery (RFB) stores energy in the form of oxidized and reduced electro-active chemical species which are stored externally to the battery cell, allowing the RFB to have benefits of decoupled control and design of energy and power. Therefore, the RFB is getting intensive attention as one of the most promising and cost-effective systems to store large amounts of energy typically from renewable resources. However, even with the big benefits of the RFB system, the full application of RFB could not be achieved due to the challenging issues such as high system cost and safety issues associated with …

Ortho-Hydroxychalcone : A Molecular Switch And Metal Sensing Fluorophore, Theodore Litberg

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Flavanone and its ortho-hydroxychalcone isomer can be interconverted by changes in pH, making an attractive molecular switch scaffold. The ortho-hydroxychalcone, being an extended aromatic system, can also be utilized as a fluorophore with metal binding capacity. The scaffold can also be dramatically changed from previous studies by exchanging the acetophenone and benzaldehyde derived rings for hetero and extended aromatic rings to determine their effect on the midpoint pH. A variety of methoxy-/fluoro-substituted and hetero-/extended aromatic chalcones were screened in methanol and pH 13.50 buffer to determine if the scaffolds were fluorescent. From a possible 32 chalcones in the two conditions, …

Parental Stress And Boundary Turbulence : An Investigation Of Parents' Disclosure Of Children With An Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis, L. Bryan Wilcher

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study uses communication privacy management theory (i.e., CPM, Petronio, 2002) as a framework to understand the communication that occurs between parents who have a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis and people outside of the parental dyad. The study focused on the foundations of privacy rules and boundary turbulence for parents of children who have an ASD diagnosis. Overall, the results indicated a great deal of support for the application of CPM in this context. Parents were able to articulate why and when they share information about their children's autism spectrum diagnoses. The results support the investigation …

Servants Of Two Masters? The Feigned Hysteria Over Activist-Paid Directors, Yaron Nili

Faculty Scholarship

Directors of U.S. public firms have been paid for their directorship exclusively by the company in which they serve. Recently, however, activist investors have asked shareholders to elect director-candidates who received a lucrative compensation package from the activist in addition to their compensation arrangement with the company. Incumbent managers and their defenders, such as Wachtell, Lipton, have sharply condemned this practice, terming it a ‘Golden Leash’ that subjects the nominated director to the activist’s control. I explain why these critics are mistaken. Activist-paid directors can be expected to improve corporate performance at poorly performing firms, and the cost of such …

Immigration, Yun Unknown, Andrea Unknown, Andy Unknown

Social Justice Research

Immigration Podcasts:

• Immigration Podcast 1
• Immigration Podcast 2
• Immigration Podcast 3

Incarceration Incentives In The Decarceration Era, Avlana K. Eisenberg

Vanderbilt Law Review

After forty years of skyrocketing incarceration rates, there are signs that a new "decarceration era" may be dawning; the prison population has leveled off and even slightly declined. Yet, while each branch of government has taken steps to reduce the prison population, the preceding decades of mass incarceration have empowered interest groups that contributed to the expansion of the prison industry and are now invested in its continued growth. These groups, which include public correctional officers and private prison management, resist decarceration-era policies, and they remain a substantial obstacle to reform. This Article scrutinizes the incentives of these industry stakeholders …

The Southeastern Librarian V 63, No. 4 (Winter 2016) Complete Issues

The Southeastern Librarian

Complete issue of the Southeastern Librarian, vol. 63, no. 4.

Adpr 450: Public Relations Theory And Strategy—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio—"Using Crisis Simulation To Enhance Crisis Management: The Role Of Presence", Ming Wang

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Simulation-based training (SBT) is a common pedagogical tool used in crisis management training. This paper explores the effects of a crisis simulation activity on students’ crisis management competencies. Pre- and post-test surveys indicated that students significantly improved crisis management competencies after the crisis simulation activity. Moreover, presence was found to be positively associated with crisis management competencies, suggesting that presence is critical in designing an effective simulation activity.

Jomc: 491/891: Special Topic: News Engagement Lab—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Michelle Carr Hassler

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark portfolio analyzes a collaborative elective course offered by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications in partnership with NET News, the state’s public media organization. The Spring 2016 course offered students hands-on experience creating, implementing and assessing social media content and engagement strategies for NET News. This portfolio showcases the innovative nature of the course while also demonstrating its pedagogical underpinnings. The portfolio provides a broad overview, including course goals and how activities and assignments are aligned with them. Using several assessment strategies, the inquiry focused on the course’s final project, in which students were …

Modl: 398: Women In Quran—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Abla Hasan

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This project highlights the experience of teaching Quran as a literature through MODL 298: “Women in Quran”. This course is an attempt to read Quran as a diachronically approached literature and discover what would the analytic, linguistic as well as the critical study of both the Qur’anic text and its exegesis reveal when it comes to feminism and gender issues in Islam.

Comm 101: Communication In The 21st Century—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Aaron M. Duncan

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio examines the large lecture basic survey course, Communication 101. This course uses a combination of large lecture sections led by one faculty member and small recitation sections led by three graduate assistants. The goal of this project is to enhance learning and create higher levels of student engagement. Student learning was measured through a pretest and posttest, as well as through self-evaluation of their knowledge and skills. Additionally, graduate teaching assistants completed an evaluation of the course by providing an assessment of the course’s learning objectives and of course activities. Results showed that student learning was taking place. …

Alec/Adpr 207: Communicating To Public Audiences—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Karen J. Cannon

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

A significant amount of research in teaching and learning is conducted exploring large enrollment courses. Often it seems as if we believe that the panacea is smaller class sizes. However, challenges exist in smaller enrollment courses as well. This inquiry portfolio explores an introductory, sophomore level course in strategic communication with an enrollment of 20 students. Despite the smaller number of students in the course, significant challenges exist and over the five spring semesters I’ve taught the class, one consistent challenge remains – how to bridge the wide range of student ability, knowledge, and experience of students in the course. …

Tmfd 146: Visualization Studio—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio—Student Perceptions Of Learning To Draw The Human Form, Michael Burton

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This course portfolio examines student experiences while taking Visualization Studio and illustrates the various drawing and design projects they complete. While this document illustrates the overall course experience it focuses on student perceptions of learning to draw the human form by two students. Student A, Alesha, demonstrates a high pass example and student B, Mallory, demonstrates a mid pass example.

I feel it is obvious to compare high and low pass samples but the difference between high and mid is much harder to differentiate. Key elements are highlighted to identify the differences between them. Although final course grades were close …

Edps 870: Introduction To Educational And Psychological Measurement—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Anthony D. Albano

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio was compiled at the completion of the Peer Review of Teaching Project, professional development available to faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The purpose of the project is to support faculty in evaluating and documenting the effectiveness of their teaching. The main objective of this portfolio is to summarize the results of my participation in the project during the 2015/2016 academic year. The portfolio summarizes key features of the course and my teaching methods, along with examples of student work.

Pols 430: Political Communication—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Brandon Bosch

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This course portfolio was created to articulate, assess, and reflect upon my course objectives for a political communication class that I taught in Spring 2016. Of particular note was my objective in trying to use a Verbal Exam to assess student learning. Although I encountered some difficulties in implementing the Verbal Exam, students seemed to be either neutral or somewhat supportive of having a Verbal Exam, with students generally inclined to thinking that they learned something about interviews from the process and showing some mild support for them being used in other classes. It is worth noting that the Verbal …

Capital, Inequality, And Self-Determination: Creating A Sovereign Financial System For Native American Nations, W. Gregory Guedel, Ph.D, J. D. Colbert

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Raising Capital In Indian Country, Evan Way

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dexamethasone Alone And In Combination With Desipramine, Phenytoin, Valproic Acid Or Levetiracetam Interferes With 5-Ala-Mediated Ppix Production And Cellular Retention Of Ppix In Glioblastoma Cells, Johnathan E. Lawrence, Christopher J. Steele, Richard A. Rovin, Robert J. Belton Jr, Robert J. Winn

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Seeing Forests As Fuel: How Conflicting Narratives Have Shaped Woody Biomass Energy Development In The Us Since The 1970s, Sarah Mittlefehldt

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Effects Of The Copper Intrauterine Device Versus Injectable Progestin Contraception On Pregnancy Rates And Method Discontinuation Among Women Attending Termination Of Pregnancy Services In South Africa: A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial, G. Justus Hofmeyr, Mandisa Singata-Madliki, Theresa A. Lawrie, Eduardo Bergel, Marleen Temmerman

Obstetrics and Gynaecology, East Africa

Background: The copper intrauterine device (IUD) is under-utilised in South Africa, where injectable progestin contraception (IPC) dominates contraception usage. There is a lack of robust comparative data on these contraceptive options to inform policy, programs, clinical counseling, and women’s choices.

Methods: Within the context of a South African program to increase women’s access to the IUD, we conducted a pragmatic, open-label, parallel-arm, randomised controlled trial of the IUD versus IPC at two South African hospitals. The target sample size was 7,000 women and the randomisation ratio was 1:1. The random sequence was computer-generated and group allocation was concealed in sealed, …

Environmental Racism And The Movement For Black Lives: Grassroots Power In The 21st Century, Rickie Cleere

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis explores the ways in which the environmental justice movement, which is in opposition to environmental racism, and the Black Lives Matter movement, which is in opposition to police brutality and other forms of racism, are part of the same struggle: a struggle against the neoliberal violence of the state. This struggle against neoliberal violence is at the same time a struggle for communities of color to achieve self-determination on a global scale, a monumental task which might be informed through a revolutionary intercommunalist framework of global grassroots solidarity. State oppression embodies violence in more forms that one, including …

Whoever Controls Access To The Tap Collects Rent On It: How Nigeria’S Function As A Gatekeeper State Fostered Environmental Degradation By Transnational Corporations, Mayowa Ige

Pomona Senior Theses

Every year, for the past 50 years, Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta has suffered the same magnitude of oil spill in its rivers and swamps than was spilled in the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill. The damage has devastated the way of life of the Ogoni people who live in the area. They have consistently suffered environmental injustice as a result of Shell’s oil exploration, and the Nigerian government has ignored their cries for help and restitution. In fact, movements to garner support for environmental justice and fare share of oil profits and ownership from Shell and the state have been brutally …